Friday, June 27, 2014

Buses are provided by the government, but still many people choose to drive cars. This is costing Australia millions of dollars in damages from drought, flood, heat, and fires from climate change. In addition, the driving of cars causes massive export of local wealth for fuel.

dailytelegraph.com.au: "And there has been a 57 per cent increase in Transport Department service orders slapped on bus operators over issues such as driver quality, route signage and ticket information."

Friday, June 20, 2014

smh.com : "The entire asking for tickets part of a transit officer’s job is a waste of time. Whenever the inspectors swagger onto a train, I can pick who’s most likely not to have a valid ticket.

Worst of all, I’m usually right.

It’s the poorest, most vulnerable and downtrodden. People who are also least likely to be able to afford it. People who are probably only an application form and short training course away from being transit officers themselves.

With all the fines and transit officers, are we saying as a society that anyone who can’t afford to travel shouldn’t be allowed to?

Public transport should be free, and the cost shared proportionally by everyone in this country, based on how much tax they pay, not how much they use it, otherwise it’s not ‘public’ transport at all."

Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Sunshine Coast Queensland: "“As part of our strong plan for a brighter future we are delivering real savings for passengers with more than 7.1 million free journeys taken since June 2012,” Mr Emerson said.
“Many of these trips would not have been taken without the incentive of free travel with the policy encouraging passengers to choose to get out of their cars and on to public transport."

Greens' Safe Climate Bill

Travelling with a light footprint
Australia's cities and suburbs are increasingly being built around cars, not people, and more of our intercity travel and freight is going by road or air instead of rail. In a world where peak oil and climate change are converging, this has to change fast.
We have to redesign our cities for people instead of cars, with urban villages connected by fast, efficient and convenient buses, trams and trains, cycleways and pedestrian paths. We have to give ourselves real alternatives to flying between cities. We have to end the subsidies to fossil fuel based transport. We have to think a few steps into the future, instead of repeating the same old mistakes of the past. ReadMore [pdf]